Last weekend

Sometimes I don’t even think last weekend existed. Weekends are supposed to have some “sit down and relax” time in them. Last weekend seemed to be almost constantly in motion. I don’t even remember Friday night or Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon was when the Ubuntu Michigan LoCo got together to participate in the Global Bug Jam. While the stats page was pretty buggy and giving out ridiculous numbers, I still feel justified in saying we rocked it. Five of us in person in the metro Detroit area and an unknown quantity of other online or on the West side of the state manhandled (at latest count) 90 bugs. Plus, we had a good time! Sure, we hang out and talk on IRC, mailing list, and Identi.ca all the time, but there’s something about a face-to-face meeting that just can’t be equalled online.

Sunday, I cleared Saturday’s snow off my driveway and sidewalk. Afterwards I took a short but much-needed nap, and then I went to SCA fight practice, bringing my numbers on the New Year’s resolution to 2/8. So while 25% is a low grade on a test, and not even a great batting average in pro baseball, it does put me on a pace for 13 fights this year, which is quite a bit shy of my goal, but far in excess of any year in recent memory. I would have to go back to before I started travelling to Germany for Chrysler (about 6 years ago) to even come close to that. Also, I intend to improve on that pace, not keep it.

One thing that will make it easier for me to improve on my record is the Liechtenauer training group that has formed at the local fight practice. I’ve talked about this swordfighting style here before, and it really lights a fire in me. In fact it’s the only reason I went this weekend, since my knee was still hurting from the previous weekend and I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of putting armor on. I was hugely impressed with the number of people who turned out for this group. I had no idea so many others were interested. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many people with a longsword (“bastard sword” or “great sword” in SCA or D&D terms) in their hands at one time before. Now if we can just get all these folks into armor and fighting with this style…

To round out my Sunday, I went to The Fridge directly after fight practice. The Fridge is a refrigerated track toboggan run. It felt more like a roller coaster, except without any turns (and you walk back up the hill rather than being carried up it). It was a lot of fun until my knee decided it wanted no part of climbing back up that hill again. Unfortunately, it decided this at the bottom of the hill… But at least I only had to go half way to get back to parking-lot level.

This weekend I expect/hope to get more rest in, though I’m aiming for practice again on Sunday, even if it’s only for the Liechtenauer training.